Retention is the percentage of new users who come back to your game after playing it for the first time. To improve this metric, focus on your game's core loop, first-time user experience, and performance.
The Core loop is essentially the very heartbeat of your game. It is a series or chain of gameplay actions that is repeated over and over as the primary flow of your players game experience. It is the core essence of why players return to play games over and over again.
For HypeHype and mobile games typically, your core game loop should be short, simple and easy to understand. It should make sense in your game's universe or theme and support the rules of your game. A good way to think about this is that in just a few short seconds of watching, the reaction you’re looking for is “ah, ok yes I get it.”
The following example is one path to improve your core loop:
First-time user experience (FTUE) is how new players experience your core loop for the first time.
To improve your FTUE:
Performance is how well your experience runs on different devices and platforms. To improve your performance:
Playtest on different devices or platforms to fix any bugs that might affect game performance.
Monitor frame rates (FPS), and errors each time you update your game.
Read community feedback from comments or set up a user community (group, Discord) that can help identify bugs and crashes.